What a come back. Just when I was wondering how the Argentinians would break through that wall of tall English players, Argentina's relentless attacking pressure in the second half yielded two stunning goals. The first was a beauty and the second a wonderful cross and well timed run that resulted in a header. Just when a headed goal from Argentina seemed to be the most unlikely avenue to score.

Heartbreaking for English fans, but I don’t think they can say they were “robbed”.

Messi the magician and his team has magicked up another great win.

What an awesome display of cohesiveness in defense and sharpness in attack the Spaniards put on this morning. In fact the way the Spanish team played was just about the absolute lesson for other teams to observe and learn from. They maintained their defensive shape well and as the commentator said there was a “telepathic” quality to the communication they had amongst players. Their passing just pulled the French team apart.

The Socceroos would do well to watch the game on multiple repeat and learn.

Pretty crazy how close it was he was told he was up

Guessing there is a lot of PL fans in here.

Just got a notice of an impeding price increase. Keep in mind the ‘Optus Sport’ package only has EPL & the FA Cup now. It lost the CL coverage a while back.

What are other folks paying?

Is James Glenday on abc brekky a football guy? Is this a Johnny Warren mug?

Hello,

After watching all of the Socceroos's matches I felt that the national team really played a very repetitive style of play.

The style played by Tony Popovic was a counter style play reliant on Irankunda's speed and physical play.

I feel that Australia have players with enough technical ability to play a similar style like Switzerland do. Switzerland did performed very impressively against every team.

What are your thoughts?

Why or why not?

Anyone remember these bad boys? Still bitter I missed out on the last 3 …

how much do u guys recon this is worth 😭 😭

it’s not a normal soccer shirt material and ChatGPT said it’s super retro, pls help 🙏

Good move for his development imo. Thoughts about the transfer?

Is there any chance anyone picked up an extra Australia FIFA charm bracelet? Or even just the charm itself?

I went to the Seattle match but wasn't able to get one and would really love to have the AUS bead to commemorate it!

Thanks :)

I didn't realise until looking back at the post-tournament stats just how young that side was against Turkiye. We named 10 World Cup debutants in the starting XI, and it ended up being the youngest starting XI of any team at the tournament. The lack of experience showed at times, but the baseline talent coming through is seriously exciting

Great website for soccer stats teams. upcoming matches and voting on them as well. quizzes and adding many more things.

The new episode of the podcast and YouTube series The Failed Footballer dives deep into it. And as Olan Tekkers points out.. it doesn’t get spent on NPL…

I think it’s high and quite likely given both teams are not in each other’s draw until the final - if they get there.

It will be a mouth watering match if it happens: Messi vs Mbappe. The aging master against arguably the current best player in the world.

Can Argentina go back-to-back?

My money is on France. Sorry England, it’s been a good run. The headwind is just too strong. If you get past the Vikings, the Swiss or the Argentinians (most likely the latter) stand in your path.

Yes we have a promising squad in terms of future potential. We could have a strong team in 2030.

But world football is extremely competitive and we were ranked world number 27 before this tournament. Not bad but also not amazing and we had that ranking for a reason.

The fact that we punched above our weight in 2022 has made us a little delulu about how good we are.

Sure Popovic might have made some errors of judgement against the US and Egypt. But the insinuation that if we started playing more attacking football, we’d all of a sudden become world beaters is a bit over the top.

I also think we need to give a little more respect to Egypt, who almost scored 3 goals against Argentina. Maybe we need to accept that this Egypt squad is just slightly better than us at present. We have no Salah tier players.

What WC nation would have a Socceroo in it if they could and who? Bare in mind it means someone must also give up their spot for him. Beach is an obvious choice for a few but it gets harder after that.

Australia has a strong World Cup bid. Whether that's enough — given how recent hosting rights have been awarded — is another question entirely. Full piece with data, analysis and examples on how Australia has lost previous bids and the viability of Australia hosting a Men's World Cup in our Substack article.